


This is Not Goodbye Forever

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Engagement, M/M, Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:42:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock knew John before he went to war.<br/>In fact, they were engaged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Not Goodbye Forever

”This is not goodbye, I promise.” He says, as he will every time from then on. There’s a chain around his neck with a silver band hanging from it. It glints in the dim light of the departure gates, like the blade of a knife. He turns to go trough airport security, luggage already checked in. The clothing is stiff, new. So is the canvas bag slung over his shoulder. A hand shoots out to hold onto his sleeve. A thumb rubs over the material, feels the stiff unworn texture of it and categorises it. Files it away ad cherishes it as the bittersweet moment it is, though he will never admit it.  
“Come back in one piece.” He says, and repeats every time.   
“I will.” He smiles, promises for the first time of many, and they kiss for the last time in months. As they will in the future. The scene repeats too many times for either of their liking.   
Sherlock lets the sleeve go and watches his fiancé John Watson turn. Watches him go to war. Around his own neck there is a matching silver band, and he thinks it might just burn a hole straight trough his chest as the love of his life leaves to fight for someone he doesn’t really care for. But John is loyal, and he is magnificently steadfast in his belief of protection. Sherlock loves him for all the reasons he leaves him for this war, and so he hates himself for it too.  
Sherlock has always been indifferent to world conflicts, to war. It’s always been Mycrofts forte, not his. The politics of the world has never mattered to him outside of the legal system when it comes to criminal activity, but it does not include political crimes too often. Certainly not war. Right in this moment he loathes it all.

He moves to 221b on his own. Boxes enough for two, living space for two, but just for him in this moment. He packs up everything in his own flat and everything in Johns old flat. They were supposed to move in together, but they never got the time to. They’d agreed that it was good for John to have a home to come home to, a home with Sherlock. It had been part of the proposal speech too. It was the promise of coming home.  
“There’s a bedroom upstairs, if you’ll be needing two bedrooms.”  
“I could use the storage space.” John’s things, the few he has that Sherlock can’t stand looking at. Not now. Blasted sentiment. They end up in the unused bedroom, boxes upon boxes of clothes and personal items he hasn’t taken with him. He keeps a few essential things out. Those he couldn’t survive the day without seeing, so they can remind him of who this space too big for one is waiting for to come help him fill it. Johns chair, Johns favourite mug, a few decorations that mingle with his own perfectly. A few they got together while out and about in their earlier teenaged years. All of the pictures of the two of them are in Sherlocks (their) bedroom. In a drawer. He looks at them from time to time. The edges of those that are not framed wears down, he puts one in his wallet. In the very farthest back card slot. It’s from a photo booth strip, ripped at the top and at the bottom. It was the third one taken of them, from their first date. Sherlocks forehead is riddled with acne and John is wearing braces but smiling widely. Dirty rugby jacket covering his shoulders, and Sherlocks own school uniform covering his. They’d begun laughing at this point, and Johns eyes are crinkled in the way they do when he is truly happy. The way Sherlock fell in love with them.   
John has the last picture of them from that strip, tucked into the front pocket of his service shirt. It’s even more worn than Sherlocks. It was taken after the laughter died down, and they were looking at each other like the love struck teenagers they were. Acne, teenage drama, and all.

No one really knows outside of his and John’s family, a few close friends (Johns friends, he doesn’t have any). There’s no need for them to know he reasons, not until John gets back (he will, he must). He knows he pity army ‘wives’ get, and he cannot stand it. He will wait until he can introduce John in the flesh to them all. Words alone cannot describe him adequately anyway.

Mrs Hudson sometimes notices letters from strange places of the world. They come in sun bleached envelopes, smelling of dust and desert. But she writes it off as a side effect of her tenant’s strange occupation, think nothing of it. Think snot of the way Sherlocks name is written with love and care. The longing inscribed in the address that will be home soon (soon soon soon, just a bit more and then home awaits him with his soon-to-be husband, the love of his life). Neither does she see the attention with which he reads them and the care with which he handles them. The box he stores them in rather than the knife and the mantelpiece as is his custom.

Sherlock.  
The days are already blurring together {…} I couldn’t save them. {…} I miss you. I miss our London. Call me a daft git but I even miss the bloody rain. {…} I still miss you most of all. {…} Tell me more about the cases. You never cease to amaze me with your brilliance. Since the day I met you {…} and don’t bug our poor landlady too much, love. Not until I’m there to negotiate, hah.   
{…}  
Yours, John.

John.  
{…}  
(Come home, it says between the lines.)  
{…}  
Yours, Sherlock.

The ring is still on its chain around his neck. It has not stopped burning since John left. It weighs him down like an anchor, pulling him deep beneath the surface of the water until he cannot see the light from the sky. He was never a romantic person, he could never wax poetic about the struggles and the bliss of love. John is as close he has ever gotten to express such feelings for. He does not fully understand it, but he finds he doesn’t mind when it comes to John. He does not mind any of the feelings John can extract from him. He feels like a violin, tight strings ready to respond to the loving touch of his musician. The ring discretely hides underneath the layers of his clothing, and he does not show it off. Does not show the silver glint of metal that he has bound his own heart in. The main reasons no one actually suspects anything to be on going in his romantic life are these; they do not think he is capable of love, they do not think anyone could be capable of loving him, or both. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Sherlock thinks of John on the days he almost believes them, and knows that they are not right. 

Sherlock often takes up cases of his own, so he travels a lot without notice. He goes across the world, but these days he also keeps an eye on the news, though he never did before. He’s always sure to check in, just to be sure, he needs to be sure. So when he’s gone for four weeks now and again, leaves without notice, and the only answer Lestrade gets to his texts is ‘Busy. SH’, no one really questions it. It’s Sherlock, after all. He has things to do, things he needs to do, to keep himself occupied.   
There’s a cottage in Sussex. Surrounded by flowers, forest on the west side and a river on the east side. A terrace with sun most of the day. It’s quiet, peaceful. Perfect for vacationing, beekeeping, and growing old with someone. It’s well used, loved, and it shows.  
“Where were you?”   
“Sussex.”   
“Alright.”

During one specific case there is an engaged couple, and a crime of passion. It’s so obvious. He speaks so easily about why it was done, how they loved so intensely, how love is one of the most vicious motivators out there. He thinks of John when he explains, and the words flow so easy once the connection is made in his head.   
“What do you know about love?” someone says, Sherlock can’t be bothered to remember who, but it had shut him up. Had made his automatic response kick in, shutting down to protect himself. His hand had twitched, longing to reach up and touch the ring around his neck. Wanted to feel the proof that someone loved him as he loved them in turn. Another answers for him instead.  
“The freak doesn’t know anything about love, who could ever put up with him anyway?”  
He leaves then, without a word. Stoic as ever. No one really questions it.

John.  
{…}   
They called me unlovable again.   
{…}  
Yours, Sherlock.

Sherlock.  
{…}   
They’re all idiots, I thought we’d established this {…} Don’t take what they say to heart, that’s where I belong after all, as you do in mine   
{…}  
Yours forever in heart and soul, John.

He makes it all better, and it’s all good. He needs to hurry home. 

Sherlock has worked with them for almost five years now, and Lestrade figures a tiny celebration of some sort should be in order. In their line of work it’s important to celebrate the good things, or the positive things, rather. The things that result in more criminals behind bars at the end of the day, that’s all that counts, right? Yes. That seems accurate enough.   
Sherlock doesn’t turn up.  
“Why didn’t you show up?”   
“No one wanted me there, and I was wanted elsewhere. I prioritised.”   
“Where’d you go then?”   
“Nowhere.”   
Skype is shit when it all comes down to it, but if it enables his ears to soak in the warm laughter of his John, to see the crinkles around his eyes on his now suntanned skin however the grainy picture, it’s not the worst in the world.

They’d agreed to get married once John was home for good. It would be better that way. John had proposed the day after the letter arrived. The letter determining the next few years of his life. He got down on one knee at Sherlocks flat after giving him the bad news.  
“Look, I know you’re not the overly romantic type. But I also know that I’d like to spend the rest of my life with you, live out all my days with you, and that hopefully you wish to do the same. And while this army situation might put this plan to a pause, I’d still like for it to be the outcome for us in the end. So this is what I’m asking you, Sherlock. Make a home with me while I’m gone, so I can come home to you, like I always want to. Wait for me like I will wait for you, until we can have our happy ending, romantic sap and everything. Because I love you, Sherlock Holmes you impossible mad man of my heart. So when I come back for good, because by God I will if only to see you again, will you do me the honour of becoming my husband?”  
Sherlock had frozen for all of thirty seconds, trying to understand before falling to his knees and embracing John.  
“Obvious.” He’d said with a smile as he leant back to look John in the face.  
“I’d still like for you to say it, you know I’m a romantic, humour me.” He’d said with laughter in his voice.   
“Yes.” Sherlock had whispered before he leaned n to kiss him. Kiss his fiancé.   
Celebrating being able to spend the rest of their lives by each other’s sides seemed like a good idea at the time. Sherlock had agreed, but he hated it too in equal amount while he had to wait for that day.

He’s at a crime scene when it happens. In the middle of explaining just who the killer was and questioning why his precious time had been wasted with such a simple-minded case to be precise. His phone blasts the notes of God Save the Queen and he knows it’s Mycroft. He never calls unless it is to be extremely annoying. He’s about to yell just where he can stick his gigantuous and unwelcome nose when Mycroft opens the conversation with “It’s John.”  
Sherlock stills. He stills to such an extent that everybody notices. His ‘still’ pose is never still like this. There is energy thrumming just beneath the surface. Always. Not now. It’s deathly still.  
“He was shot, left shoulder. He’s been trough surgery, but it’s been infected. He’ll most likely live and I’ll have him transferred to London as soon as I can manage. Sherlock I’m-“ he hangs up. Doesn’t want to hear it. Can’t hear it.  
“Sherlock?” Lestrade attempts contact. Sherlock turns his eyes to him, and Lestrade has never seen this proud, obnoxious man as broken and vulnerable as he looks in that very moment. He looks lost, as if his lifeline had just been savagely ripped out of the hands of his six year old self. It might as well have been that that happened.   
He leaves without a word. Lestrade is tempted to go after, but stops himself.

He isolates himself to the point where Lestrade stages a fake drugs bust to get him to talk. When they enter the flat Sherlock sits on the floor with one of the sitting room chairs at his right shoulder. His head rests on the seat, eyes closed. It’s the chair he never uses, the one he denies visitors to sit in. Lestrade had always wondered what the point of it was.   
Sherlock looks tired, not his usual ‘I function without sleep’ mind set for too long tired, but a soul and bone deep tired of existence tired. He has a wooden box beside him, and for a bit Lestrade thinks the fake drugs bust has turned into a real one.  
He approaches.  
“Sherlock?” the man in question opens his eyes, they are red rimmed and still slightly damp. Lestrade leans down to touch his shoulder. The contact has the effect of an electric shock, and Sherlock jolts upright, staring at them all as if he hadn’t even noticed them. His face quickly distorts into pure anger.  
“Get out.” He whispers in a dangerously low voice. Lestrades brows furrow.  
“You haven’t been out in weeks.”   
“I don’t care, I’m waiting here, get out.”  
“Waiting for what?” Sherlock turns his head away. Lestrade reaches for the box but Sherlock is quicker than him, even in this dulled state his reflexes are better.   
“Don’t. Touch. It.” He bites out.  
“I need to see what’s in it.” Lestrade says in a firm voice.   
“It’s just letters.”   
“Letters?”  
“Fan letter from other psychopaths I bet.” A voice in the party pipes up. Lestrade glares and points at the person who just spoke.  
“You. Out.” And they leave.  
“You need to show me.”   
Sherlock hesitantly opens the box for Lestrade to peer into. True to his word there are only letter. Letters upon letters addressed to Sherlock, signed with John.  
Lestrade turns to the small group.  
“You lot wait outside.”  
They shuffle out, but throw professionalism to the wind to eavesdrop at the door.  
“Alright, who’s John?” he says as an opener to the conversation they obviously need to have.  
“What does it matter to you?”  
His voice is bitter, betrayed.   
“Well it obviously matters to you Sherlock, and like it or not I consider us friends, and I’m worried about you. Now you seem to be worried over this John person, so I’m asking.”  
Sherlock has never had friends, he’s had family and he’s had John. He thinks he doesn’t mind Lestrade as his friend. Recalls John saying he’d quite like to meet this Lestrade person for a pint, anyone who tolerates Sherlock to such an extent is a valuable candidate for a friend in his eyes. Sherlock absently think Lestrade and John could be good friends. If they get the chance. He almost shuts down again.   
“John Watson… is my fiancé.” He says in one long exhale of breath.   
“You’re engaged? For how long?”   
“About six years or so now.”   
“How come you never told anyone?” Sherlock shrugs the shoulder not resting against the chair.  
“It didn’t matter, he’s not here.”   
“Where is he then?” Lestrade almost dreads the answer. Sherlock bites his lip and focuses his eyes over Lestrades shoulder before meeting them again.  
“He’s in Afghanistan, army doctor, you’d think with such a position there is less of a chance to be shot. They’re not really supposed to be in the front lines. John rushed to help a fallen soldier, and got caught in the crossfire.” His voice is almost emotionless if it wasn’t for the slight tremble.  
Lestrade feels his own heart break for self claimed sociopath Sherlock Holmes.  
Sherlock laughs bitterly.  
“That’s my John. Always so eager to help, so brave.” He says wistfully.  
“And is he…?” The question hangs heavy in the air between them.  
“No. Maybe soon though. The wound got infected. He’s being kept until the fever breaks, if it breaks.” His voice fades away.  
“He promised to come back in one piece. Every time. He promised.”

Rumours spread. Soon everybody knows of the fiancé of the psychopathic man that helps Lestrade on his cases. Or the supposed fiancé. Some people do not believe him, other show pity. When Sherlock returns to his work after another half a week of mind numbing pain, to try and distract himself and drown out the echoing ‘if’s and ‘maybe’s knocking about in his head, he is met with a multitude of responses. Some tell him they’re sorry for his loss, as if John is already dead, some say they hope it will all be all right. A few accuse him of lying, Lestrade handles them.

A month later Sherlock is gone from the flat, Lestrade finds as he goes to consult him. His landlady has not seen him for three days. He texts, calls, searches the entirety of London for him. Well, he doesn’t come that far until a discrete black car pulls up, and he is told to “Get in and we’ll take you to Sherlock.”  
They drop him off outside St Barts Hospital. When he walks in he is immediately redirected to a private room. The door is ajar and when he peeks in he sees a short blonde man sitting in a bed, arm in a sling, smiling. Beside the bed Sherlock sits in a plastic chair, laughing like he means it. Lestrade thinks to himself he’s never seen him as happy as he is in that moment. He knocks gently on the door to gain their attention before entering.   
Sherlock whips his head to look at him, and John eyes him before smiling.  
“You must be Greg Lestrade then, Sherlock’s told me all about you.”  
“Ah uh, yes. Yes I am. You must be John.” He glances at Sherlock. “John Watson.” He finishes.  
John stretches out his non-bandaged right arm to shake, and Lestrade steps closer to do just so.  
“Indeed I ma, my reputation proceeds me I see.” He turns to Sherlock then.  
“Even though you said you hardly mentioned me to anyone nowadays.”  
Sherlock actually looks abashed at this, rubbing the back of his neck lightly.  
“Yes well, Greg is my friend, it would seem. He worries.”  
John laughs, and it’s warm and Sherlock feels at home. Lestrade sees the way Sherlock looks at Johns laughing face and decides right then that this, these two, they have found love.   
This is when he sees the rings. Matching silver rings on their fingers.

It’s not long after that John starts showing up at crime scenes, tagging along after Sherlock. At first not many connect the dots made a little while ago, and there are questions.  
“He has no friends you know.”  
And John ignores it, smiles to him, because he knows Sherlock better than these ignorant people ever will.  
And he says things like ‘brilliant’, ‘fantastic’, and ‘magnificent’.  
He smiles at Sherlock, keeps him in check, makes sure he doesn’t overstep.   
Lestrade can see why when they found each other, they kept a hold of each other. They might just be the best duo he’s ever seen.  
He goes for endless pints with John, and they grow close, he follows his blog, reads the documented stories of the mad chases the two engage in, the cases. Occasionally the domestic bliss of their life in 221b.  
One day Sherlock accompanies them out to the pub, ad together they ask Greg a very important question.  
“We were wondering, that is, John and I we… we would very much appreciate… it would be great if you could…if you could be the-well the-the best man. At our wedding. Please.” Sherlock manages to stutter out as john smiles fondly. He looks from one man to the other before breaking into a delighted grin.  
“Of course!” he says.

It’s a spring wedding. Everything is bright colours, pastel yellow and white, charcoal suits all around. Lilley of the Valley everywhere (you’ve made my life complete).  
Sherlock cries as he walks down the aisle, gently. He will deny it later but it doesn’t matter. They’ve got it all on tape.


End file.
